IN all the grieving lately over the death of John Ritter, nobody bothered to mention how God-awful his show was.

Well, I don’t mind mentioning it: “8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter” is a vulgar, offensive, worthless piece of junk that should have been discontinued while ABC had the chance.

Instead, everybody carried on so about the need to continue the show after Ritter’s sudden death Sept. 11 that it had me and probably many others believing the show must possess endearing qualities we hadn’t noticed previously. Last season, I sampled the show exactly once and never returned.

I finally did return this past Tuesday night to catch the second of three episodes Ritter filmed before his death.

His last episode is scheduled to air next Tuesday night at 8 on ABC. It will be promoted often in the coming days and will likely score huge ratings.

The show’s season premiere, with Ritter, attracted just shy of 17 million viewers Sept. 23, while the second episode this week drew around 15.5 million, according to ABC.

Ritter was stricken during rehearsals for the season’s fourth episode, which was not filmed.

With no more new episodes available after next week, ABC is thinking about filling the 8 p.m. Tuesday slot with repeats of “8 Simple Rules” from last season until new episodes resume that will deal with the death of Ritter’s character and introduce a new male lead. An effort to find a new star is reportedly underway.

In the meantime, ABC cajoles us in its promo spots to “share the final episodes of John Ritter,” adding exuberantly: “Nobody ‘Rules’ comedy like ABC!”

The episodes are preceded by a remark or two from one of Ritter’s co-stars. Katey Sagal, who plays his wife, got the assignment this past Tuesday.

“For the next two weeks, we invite you to join us in watching the last work of a truly remarkable man, John Ritter,” she said solemnly, seated on a stool in front of a velvet curtain. “. . . There’s no better way for us to honor his memory than by sharing his final episodes with you.”

I can think of a better way to honor him: How about refraining from using his death as a lure to increase viewership?

It’s not as if his pending death is in any way foreshadowed or otherwise evident in the way Ritter looks or acts in the episodes he filmed before he died. Tuesday night’s episode was so ordinary (not to mention way too explicitly sexual for the 8 p.m. time slot) and Ritter so energetic that I admit I forgot while watching it that this guy would be dying just a few weeks after this particular episode was filmed.

I have nothing against John Ritter. He was a real talented guy who seemed to have many friends and admirers who are all justifiably saddened by his passing at the too-young age of 54.

He deserves to be remembered. The cliched, profane little show he happened to be working on when he died does not.